Stephen King’s The Dark Tower may find new home at Warner Brothers

Warner Brothers is close to closing a deal with Ron Howard to direct at least the first feature film from Stephen King’s post-apocalyptic Western The Dark Tower. You may remember Universal Pictures dropped the property last July after considering developing it as three feature films and two limited-run TV series. Javier Bardem was attached at the time to play gunslinger Roland Deschain and the actor may yet play the role. Akiva Goldsman wrote the script and is producing with Brian Grazer and King. Via Deadline:

Basically the studio bought Goldsman’s script and are paying him to do a polish. Howard remains attached to direct, likely in first-quarter 2013. Pic is a co-production between Goldsman’s Weed Road and Howard and Grazer’s Imagine. Bardem’s participation would depend upon his availability, but he was firmly attached when the project was at Universal.

Grazer was quoted last October as saying that the reduced budget for the first film — $90-95M vs. the original $140M price tag — would result in the project ultimately getting made.